Negotiated Elections

By Roberto Cassa, NACLA Report on the Americas, March/April
1997

[Roberto Cassa is professor of history at the Autonomous
University of Santo Domingo.]

It is a constant refrain among observers of the Dominican
Republic that the country is evolving toward "the
consolidation of democracy." Despite the distance between the
refrain and reality, it remains the touchstone of the
standard evaluations of the presidential elections that took
place in May and June of 1996. The reality is that in the
Dominican Republic, although public liberties are now
respected, and political lawlessness has considerably
diminished, the essential authoritaritarian outlines of the
state system are still very much intact. Joaquin Balaguer,
the holder of executive power since 1986--and before that,
between 1966 and 1978--had effectively annulled all other
powers of the state, maintaining himself at the head of
government through a combination of procedures that involved
electoral fraud, the exercise of extralegal violence, the
repression of social protests, bribery, the corruption of the
highest spheres of government and, in general, the refusal to
observe the canons of the law.

Political movements opposed to this authoritarian structure
have long existed in the Dominican Republic, and over the
last two decades, Dominicans have particularly resented the
impoverishing effects of the state's brutal, self-interested
incompetence. During the 1980s, as hopes diminished for
change through electoral means, social movements emerged
which questioned the country's authoritarian structure and,
above all, the dizzying fall of living standards. These
movements were never well organized, and they generally
suffered from a lack of clear direction. As they ran their
course by the end of the decade, hopes returned to electoral
means--and the 1990 presidential elections--as a means of
ousting Balaguer and his cronies.

These electoral hopes, to a great degree, were buoyed by Juan
Bosch's Dominican Liberation Party (PLD)--a party which had
gained prestige in the wake of the discredit visited upon the
center-left Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), after its
eight years in the presidency from 1978 to 1986. Balaguer,
however, was successful in his use of brazen fraud in 1990.
And beyond simple on-the-ground fraud, he was able to secure
U.S. backing for his presidential race. Despite the desire of
many U.S. policy makers to rid themselves of the inconvenient
Balaguer, Washington power brokers hated and feared PLD
candidate Bosch even more. They hated him because of his old
leftist positions and, perhaps above all, for his
unpredictable personal style. They hated him despite his
attempts to change his party, making it into more of a
mainstream member of the country's political system, and
stripping it of its old radical positions.

Four years later, in 1994, electoral fraud was harder to pull
off than it was in 1990. First, the PRD, having resolved its
internal divisions, assumed a much more beligerant position
toward Balaguer than the PLD. Second, a new Democratic
administration in Washington brought a new set of U.S.
officials to positions of influence whose primary goal was
the departure of Balaguer and the formation of a legitimate
government. After events in Haiti, Washington became worried
that Balaguer's authoritarian impunity might threaten
stability in the Dominican Republic, which could endanger its
place within the imperial network. Washington found it
convenient to channel discontent into the two opposition
parties, the PRD and the PLD, and thereby to undercut the re-
emergence of potentially destabilizing popular movements.

This is why the Clinton administration, despite evidence of
widespread fraud in the 1994 elections, decided to send State
Department functionaries to the Dominican Republic to
negotiate a compromise between the government and the
opposition. This compromise, called the "Pact for Democracy,"
recognized that the occurrence of irregularities was so
routine and of such a magnitude that the only solution was to
modify the Constitution to prohibit the successive re-
election of the president. The Pact also cut Balaguer's term
short to only two years, and mandated new presidential
elections in 1996. It was also ruled that the 1996
presidential elections would be contested in two rounds if no
candidate received an absolute majority--the second round
consisting of a runoff between the two candidates receiving
the most votes.

Although the Pact for Democracy, authorized two additonal
years for an illegitimate regime, all sides accepted it on
the grounds that it helped to "consolidate democracy." Some
opposition leaders even elevated Joaquin Balaguer to the
position of exemplary democrat. Compelled to yield to both
national and U.S. pressures, Balaguer saw the Pact as the
exit from presidential power most favorable to his interests.
In the meantime, he prepared the greatest number of obstacles
possible to prevent the predicted triumph of the PRD in 1996.
For example, he engineered the rejection of the PRD proposal
that a 40% plurality in the first round would be sufficient
to avoid a runoff, and insisted on the second-round concept.
Balaguer's efforts enjoyed the open support of the PLD, which
saw the PRD as its greatest competitor. Jose Francisco Pena
Gomez, leader and presidential candidate of the PRD,
mistakenly let these maneuvers pass in the belief that his
triumph at the polls would be great enough to go
unchallenged.

From the moment Joaquin Balaguer no longer figured as a
presidential candidate, the influence of his Social Christian
Reformist Party (PRSC) dwindled considerably. Balaguer had no
sympathy for the PRSC candidate, the incumbent vice president
Jacinto Peynado, who aspired to be Balaguer's political heir.
Bequeathing power to Peynado was intolerable for the rightist
caudillo, who was thus faced with the choice of strengthening
his own political following, or avoiding the triumph of his
archenemy, Jose Francisco Pena Gomez. Since his own party had
no chance of winning, and a good showing by Peynado would run
counter to his own personal interests, Balaguer opted for the
second alternative, and devoted himself to working for the
triumph of the PLD candidate, Leonel Fernandez.

In accordance with that objective, he encouraged the
establishment of close links between the leaderships of the
PRSC and the PLD. To bring about the defeat of Pena Gomez,
the PLD offered the promise of a "new road," in appearance
cleaner than the one offered by the PRD. This did not prevent
the PLD from accepting--by way of Balaguer's cronies in the
so-called "palace ring"--all manner of helpful resources from
the PRSC and the state.

Despite this maneuvering in favor of Fernandez, the PRD
enjoyed an initial advantage thanks to its history of
militant opposition to the unpopular Balaguer regime. To make
use of that advantage, however, the party had to propose
significant modifications of its past practices. The party's
weak flank was the public memory of its two administrations
from 1978 to 1986, both characterized by incompetence and
corruption. Many influential PRD activists were conscious of
the need to put some distance between the party and its own
past, but large portions of the leadership involved in that
corrupt experience were not prepared to step aside.

Pena Gomez, as the leader of the party, tried to bring both
perspectives together, offering a promise of substantial
change while preserving the historic symbols of the party's
identity. To accomplish this, he established alliances with a
large number political sectors--to his right as well as to
his left--in the so-called Santo Domingo Accord. Above all,
he emphasized a moderate orientation, symbolized by his
choice of advisors, and above all by his running mate,
Francisco Alvarez Bogaert, a political conservative who had
been driven out of the PRSC for trying to displace Balaguer.

In sum, the PRD saw itself trapped between the need to obtain
popular support on the basis of new political proposals, and
that of remaining acceptable to its dominant sectors, without
whom it would not be able to win. And beyond mollifying its
own conservative forces, the party's rightward drift was
meant to maintain crucial support from big capital and other
powerful actors in order to counterbalance the power of the
state apparatus in the hands of Balaguer.

The party's solution was to lay out programatic proposals
that emphasized modernization and social reforms, not unlike
much of the neoliberal tonic currently prevalent in Latin
America. From the electoral point of view, the PRD believed
that these proposals would be supported by a majority of the
electorate, and especially the urban poor. And this was the
party's principal error. Certain of its triumph, it
underestimated the challenge posed by the the PLD which, with
large sums of money put at its disposal by the state, was
able to hammer away at the credibility of its rivals.

The PLD ran on a platform that appeared to recover its
historic progressivism and make it compatible with the
alliance it was establishing with the PRSC. The PLD ably
responded to PRD accusations of collusion with Balaguer,
pointing out that the PRD too had built alliances with
rightists coming from the PRSC. Few in the party's core
showed any doubts about its embrace of neoliberalism, and
none publicly expressed any opposition to the collusion with
Balaguerism. There apparently was a consensus to obtain power
no matter what the price--a stance that received its calm
justification from Bosch's old preachings on the separation
of politics and ethics.

The programs of all three parties were more or less the same-maintaining
the status quo with vague promises of
modernization. A great majority of the population favored
defeating the intrigues of Balaguer and achieving a true
transition to democracy, which explains the early support
enjoyed by the PRD. Its long-term anti-Balaguerist identity
became its principal capital in the campaign.

In the meantime, other sectors sought, for a variety of
reasons, to prevent the triumph of the PRD. Some opposed the
PRD for its past corruption, and some for its veiled threats
that it would bring Balaguer's corrupt associates to justice.
This polarization favored the PLD from the moment it was able
to place itself above all the old practices of state
corruption. The PLD offered the guarantees of impunity from
judgement for past offenses demanded by the high circles of
Balaguerism, at the same time that it kept kept its support
base that saw the party as an instrument of substantial
change.

The lack of programatic differences, combined with these
conjunctural positions, led to a polarized and heated
campaign which, in other circumstances, might have presaged
an armed confrontation. Each party was desperate for victory-a
climate that was exacerbated by the fact that both the PRD
and the PLD had reasonable chances of winning. The result was
the division of the country into two nearly equal voting
blocs which excluded only a dwindling number of undecided
voters and a small number of independents of the left. More
than ever before, Dominicans were placing all their hopes and
expectations on the outcome of the elections.

The PRD's loss was due fundamentally to a generational
reaction in favor of the PLD. Young--and politically
independent--voters saw in the 42 year-old Leonel Hernandez a
symbol of generational change in public affairs. Insofar as
the younger generation has relegated the question of ideology
to secondary status, the hopes for renewal augured by the PLD
succeeded in transcending the conservative inclinations of
the upper-middle class and the social worries of the popular
classes. This generational sentiment was embedded in the
premise that a new administration should, above all, combine
decency and efficiency.

The social factor was less acknowledged than the
generational, although the groupings with the greatest sense
of tradition and identity among the popular classes strongly
supported the PRD. But the support of the urban barrios was
not able to outweigh the powerful regional alignments.
Neither was the PRD able to bring the campesino masses under
its wing, most of whom remained loyal to the PRSC and
therefore ended up depositing their second-round votes for
the PLD.

While the middle class consistently rejected the PRD--either
from a conservative position or because their expectations of
progress and honesty had been betrayed--big business was
divided, though neither for ideological reasons nor over the
debate between protectionists and free traders. Oligarchic
sectors who traditionally had access to the highest levels of
government allied against Pena Gomez, but a large number of
mid-size capitalists supported the PRD, apparently seeking
some respite from the abuses of power.

Given his need to inflict decisive blows against the PRD,
Balaguer once again raised the specter of great powers who
were plotting to pull apart the country and unite it with
neighboring Haiti. He presented Pena Gomez as the principal
plotter, given his probable Haitian ancestry. Balaguer's
slogan throughout the campaign was that the country needed to
elect someone "truly Dominican," a euphemism meant to
question Pena Gomez's national identity. As on other
occasions, the right used racist and nationalist motives to
raise anti-Haitian sentiments to its political advantage.

Without attaching itself literally to the racist campaign,
the PLD took advantage of the strategy. It claimed that
150,000 Haitian citizens had illegally been registered to
vote, and announced that its poll watchers would object to
any voters who looked like Haitians. This was a clear attempt
to link the Haitian nation with the PRD. In the barrios, an
image developed of the PLD as a party of wealthy white people
and intellectuals who were connected to forces abroad.

The PRD responded with a campaign to defend the rights of
Dominican "morenos," presumably aggrieved by the PLD's
campaign, and launched a campaign to defend black Dominicans
as the victims of demagogy. The counter-campaign, however,
may have contributed to the strengthening of its rivals,
given that it only involved sectors of the poor population
already solidly behind Pena Gomez. But for the most part, the
racial campaign either had very little effect or was actually
counterproductive. The great majority of the population
questioned the racial arguments of both sides, or simply
didn't consider them primary elements in deciding how to
vote. This is not to say that there may have been a certain
amount of racist opposition to Pena Gomez as much for his
presumed Haitian ancestry as for the color of his skin. But
in general, despite the complaints of the PRD candidate that
the country wasn't ready to vote for a black leader, the vast
majority cast its votes strictly on the basis of politics.

In the first round which took place on May 16, the PRD
finished first with 46% of the vote, followed by the PLD with
39% and the PRSC with 15%. Paradoxically, these results did
not favor the PRD, which had put all its expectations on
receiving the 50% necessary to win on the first ballot. For
its part, the PLD was delighted, and began to project itself
as the probable winner in the second round.

As a response to the tightness of the race, the PLD entered
into an alliance with the PRSC called the National Patriotic
Front (FPN). The front--which had been decided on before the
first round by way of a secret accord between Fernandez and
Balaguer--had as its sole objective the election of Leonel
Fernandez. This revealed the lengths to which Balaguer was
willing to go to prevent the election of Pena Gomez. While
the Fernandez campaign was never actually directed by
Balaguer, the discourse of the old caudillo prevailed. In
this way, the PLD--by way of the Balaguer-Fernandez "front"--
wove racist and conservative arguments into its campaign with
more clarity. The front had no other declared objective than
to "preserve Dominicanness." In the background, the pact
guaranteed immunity from investigation and prosecution to the
old leaders of the PRSC after they left power. It also
contained implicit guarantees that the PRSC would have a
quota of positions in the new government.

To seal the agreement, Fernandez proclaimed that the thought
and work of Balaguer would be essential reference points for
his presidency. This adulteration of the historical
trajectory of the PLD was unanimously supported by the
party's leadership. Even prestigious individuals who had come
from the party's left supported the historic rehabilitation
of Balaguer. In the end, the assumption of power by Fernandez
showed that Balaguer's final triumph was his own successful
management of his departure from the presidency.

Meanwhile, the PRD and its allies tried to defend against the
PLD-Balaguerist offensive, but could not manage an effective
response. On the one hand, the party created a new focus for
the campaign, the so-called "Growth Commando," which
attempted to give more force to progressive sectors, and to
distance itself from the party's past performance. It was
clear, however, that the Growth Commando lacked backing from
the party's ruling apparatus, which preferred to simply
maintain old slogans.

Far from putting together a discourse around social themes or
substantial political reforms, the PRD centered all its
energies in attracting sectors of the PRSC--beginning with
its defeated presidential candidate, Jacinto Peynado--
supposedly discontent with Balaguer's "palace ring". Rafael
Corporan, an old PRSC functionary from Santo Domingo,
announced his support for Pena Gomez and was promptly
elevated to the position of hero of the hour. But the idea of
turning the PRSC against Balaguer was destined to fail since
the party had always operated according to the will of the
old caudillo.

The PRD did not direct enough attention to undecided voters
who were disturbed by the formation of the FPN. Many polls
indicated that immediately following the formation of the
FPN, there was a noticeable drop in support for Fernandez,
which made the triumph of Pena Gomez a distinct possibility.
In the end, however, the PRD failed to capitalize on this
sentiment, and Fernandez won the presidency with 52% of the
vote.

As the PLD settles in, it is premature to attempt an
evaluation of its governing style. Its shameful metamorphosis
into a clientelistic party, however, means that only with
great difficulty will its genuinely reformist or progressive
voices succeed in making themselves heard. Nor can we harbor
any great hopes of a principled opposition from the PRD, the
majority of whose leaders are already scheming with Balaguer
in an attempt simply to undermine the new Fernandez
administration. Neither are there forces on the left
currently capable of effectively channeling the demands of
the large masses of Dominicans. The situation therefore
presents the same risk the country faced in 1978--that
frustration brought about by the unmet expectations raised by
a new ruling party will lead the country back to its old
authoritarian ways.